"My girlfriend said she would look for a house and I would look for a boat, but then she realised houses are expensive and maybe we should just live on the boat. Houses are well and good, but you can't move your house, can you?"

But we weren’t going to South Australia for art, landscapes and wine, we were going to experience the 17th biennial South Australian Wooden Boat Festival held in Goolwa near the mouth of the Murray. I was looking forward to understanding a little bit about the particular craft of the area and how they relate the idiosyncratic geography of the region.

In a truly mammoth and unique transport task, an historic 100-year-old paddlewheeler will make its way across three states, travelling on a 1700-kilometre journey to its new home.